Ahh, nature. Every once in a while, something gets thrown at you that is so unexpected and out of the ordinary that you can’t even comprehend what occurred. This is one of those moments.

Members of the deer family typically only show aggression towards that of their own kind and predators. Each year during the rut, all members of the deer family including moose, elk, muleys and whitetails, they all grow antlers and square of head-to-head. These battles typically only occur with that of their own exclusive species and they pay minimal attention to others.

This is simply because the males have one thing on their mind: breeding the females (kind of like human males, eh?) And other species can’t do that, so they have no real reason to interact. Bull elk are massive too. They can typically average around 700-pounds and have antlers that can grow up to 6 feet long.

White-tailed deer are a much smaller animal, with a basket like set of antlers. A big buck is going to be pushing 250-pounds, and even some of the biggest you’ll see in your lifetime can break the 300 mark.

When you put these two species side-by-side it does not look like the match up would be fair. But, nature has a way of throwing a curveball that no one sees coming.

It starts with a massive buck running straight for a pretty large bull elk that is having a rest on the ground. The elk gets up and runs away as the buck drives his antlers towards him. They circle around and end up standing face-to-face. The elk looks to be a the very least twice the deer’s size…

The deer sizes the elk up and charges full speed ahead. The elk really doesn’t want anything to do with it and high tails it out of there with the buck following closely behind him. What a surprising ending to this wild encounter.

You never know what you’re going to see out there.